Profile

Matt's love of original, ground-breaking ideas and technologies have taken him across the globe to create multi-award winning campaigns and products for numerous clients including Nike, Volkswagen, Honda, Playstation, Hasbro, Guinness and Coca-Cola.

Currently, he is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of King James Digital - the #1 ranked digital agency in the country. A group of digital companies ranging from Communication, Services & Platform, Data & Media to Ventures. He is also an active investor in technology companies - from start-ups to blue-chips.

He has been named as one of Advertising Age's Creativity 50, the annual global list of the most influential and inspiring creative personalities and has won numerous awards including gold at Cannes, Clios, One Show and D&AD.

He returned to South Africa 8 years ago as the Chief Creative Officer of the DDB Group. In his first year at the helm, the DDB Group went from 13th in the national creative rankings to 1st and was the top placed South African agency at Cannes. He was ranked the top CCO in the country in his first year back.

In 2012 he took the role of Group Executive Creative Director of the King James Group. The Group has been ranked in the Top 10 Independent Agencies in the World, Agency Of The Year in Africa and #1 Creative Agency at the Loeries.

Prior to returning to South Africa, Matt spent 15 years working in London and New York, where he was the Group Executive Creative Director of DDB UK and Executive Creative Director of Tribal DDB. In his tenure, the DDB Group topped the Gunn Report and Tribal DDB were the #1 ranked digital agency by the IAB. Prior to that he worked at TBWA, AQKA and JWT, as well as founded and sold his own small agency, Dean & Dickinson.

His last minute on earth would be spent on a Glen D'Arcy 6,2" surfboard getting barrelled whilst watching 'The Big Short' with his three ladies, reading Kingsley Amis's 'Lucky Jim' and swilling a Grimbergen with Christopher Nolan and Trent Reznor.

I'm risking joining the ranks of ludicrousness by jumping in the mire of guesstimation. I'm not focusing on any specific area of our industry; after all, any development affects us all. I have tried to be broad, though. Oh, and I've avoided trends. The following will be stalwarts for years to come - the temporary is never attractive, anyway. Unless you married Liz Taylor.